1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a body movement detecting apparatus and a body movement detecting method for detecting body movements of a user and calculating energy consumed by the body movements.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, there is a pedometer as one of body movement detecting apparatuses, and more specifically, those added with a calculating function of consumed energy are widely distributed. The pedometer as described above is configured to count the number of steps (step) of the user made by walking (including running, hereinafter), and to calculate consumed energy according to the number of steps. As another body movement detecting apparatus, for example, the one disclosed in JP-A-2002-191580 is proposed. The body movement detecting apparatuses including the pedometer in the related art as described above are configured to perform a process to detect or not to detect the body movements which satisfy preset conditions irrespective of the person who uses the apparatus.
However, the users of the body movement detecting apparatuses diverse as students, workers, homemakers and so on and have different life styles, respectively. Therefore, with the apparatuses which perform the process of detecting the body movement always under certain conditions for all users as the body movement detecting apparatus in the related art, a detection process in which characteristics of the body movement of individual users are taken into consideration cannot be achieved. In contrast, performing the process of detection of the body movement on the basis of detection conditions suitable for the individual users taking how the daily lives of individual users (activity patterns) into consideration achieves further accurate calculation of the consumed energies of the individual users.
In view of such circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to perform a process of detecting a body movement on the basis of detection conditions determined by taking an activity pattern (life pattern, behavior pattern) of an individual user into consideration and hence being suitable for activity patterns of individual users, and calculate consumed energy more accurately according to the detected body movement. In other words, the invention provides a body movement detecting apparatus which is capable of accumulating data relating to the behavior of the individual user continuously, changing the conditions of the body movement detection on the basis of the accumulated data, and calculating the consumed energy according to the body movement detected thereby.